This was a hard list for me. I have pretty good instincts about what movies I’m going to like and if I don’t like the first one, I’ll avoid the sequels. My take on this topic is that these are terrible sequels to terrible movies, so I had to think long and hard about movies that I hated that inexplicably got sequels and I actually watched the sequel for reasons unknown. I also decided to rank these in order from the ones I enjoyed most to least.

Honorable Mention: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)Dir. Tim Story
I was one of the ten people who enjoyed the latest Fantastic Four movie with Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan, but when I hear about people saying that even the Jessica Alba FF movies are better than it, I must protest. The first one had very little impact on me when I saw it in theaters, but the more I thought about it, the more I grew to hate it, so I’m not sure why I decided to put myself through the second one. However, I will say they do more interesting stuff here, but it’s still cartoony and stupid, as they manage to weaken the characters and get Jessica Alba in her underwear for no reason again.

Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)Dir. Rob Hedden
There’s a lot to like in the Friday the 13th series as classic slasher films. So much so, that I would say the only time in the series there are two bad installments in a row is parts 7 and 8. 7 is a disaster of a movie that throws in a telekinetic girl to battle Jason Voorhees and should have killed the franchise dead in its tracks, but somehow they decided to continue on to make this 8th installment, which isn’t terrible, but hardly the best the series has to offer.

The Wolverine (2013)James Mangold
Pretty much everyone can agree that the first Wolverine movie is the worst, and whoever thought it was a good idea to push forward with sequels probably has a few screws loose. While The Wolverine is an improvement on its predecessor, it’s not a good movie by any means. They try to make it interesting by making Logan mortal through most of it, but I don’t think anyone believed for a second he might stay that way. The newest installment in the franchize, Logan, does look pretty interesting though, if not boring. I guess we’ll see.

Terminator: Salvation (2009)Dir. McG
After the jokey and weird misstep that was Rise of the Machines, no one wanted to see more of these. Maybe a few people’s interest was piqued when they found out it was going to be about the war with the machines in the future, and that Christian Bale had been cast, but their hopes were shattered by the final product. It speaks for itself.

The Matrix: Revolutions (2003)Dir. The Wachowski Sisters
Everyone wanted Matrix sequels. The first one was so cool and seminal that we were all on board with more stories in this world. And then Matrix: Reloaded came out and it was too late to turn back. I’m one of the few people that think Revolutions is better than Reloaded, but I really think it’s just because Reloaded has more for me to hate in it (that architect scene still makes absolutely no sense to me), but Revolutions is still a pale imitation of the first Matrix. Such a shame. The potential was there.

The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)Dir. Justin Lin
I can see why people would want a sequel to the first Fast and Furious, but when what they got was 2 Fast 2 Furious, it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around why anyone thought it would be good to do a third installment. I am glad of it though, because without these two bad movies, it may have never occurred to the producers to mix things up and start doing new and interesting things with these characters, which is why I really enjoy chapters 4-7 of the series and look forward to the pending 8th one.

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1997)Dir. Dean CundeyHoney, I Shrunk The Kids is a classic, and amazing. Its sequel, Honey, I Blew Up The Kid, is fine, but a massive fall from grace and that should have been the end of it, but someone wanted to make a money grab and seemed to bang out this garbage in a weekend. Not even Rick Moranis can save this, and that’s saying something since he could even save the likes of Streets of Fire for me.

Weekend at Bernie’s 2 (1993)Dir. Robert Klane
I know, everyone loves Weekend at Bernie’s, so how does this count? Maybe I was too young to appreciate it, but I never cared for the first one. It’s broad and simplistic, and the premise is too ridiculous for me to buy into. So, making a sequel still about the same dead guy who now becomes a dancing zombie when he hears music is even further from the mark for me.

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)Dir. Michael Bay
I absolutely hate the Transformers series, and this latest installment was incredibly long and boring. Had a couple of friends of mine over to watch it for a bad movie night, and one of them went downstairs to work on his computer for like an hour before coming back and hadn’t missed a thing. Plus, I always loved the dinobots when I was a kid and this movie completely ruins them as well. Michael Bay: childhood profiteer.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)Dir. Guy Ritchie
Another one that people inexplicably liked the first chapter of, but I thought was stupid. I thought we were going to get a cool, badass Sherlock Holmes, but instead were stuck with Robert Downey Jr. playing a weird cartoon character. I would have skipped the sequel, but the first movie did nothing except set up the sequel and Holmes’ faceoff with Moriarty, so I was curious to check out if all that setup would be worth it. Nope. The end result is even more boring and ridiculous than the first installment.

Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)Dir. Sam Raimi
There comes a point where you just should mess with classics like The Wizard of Oz. They exist in another time and place and trying to tap into that magic after decades will only lead to madness. I personally can’t stand Sam Raimi as a director as well. I think he assembles amazing cast and then has no idea what to do with them. Also, this movie plays with the history of Oz and the mythology of the world in ways that don’t make sense and fall completely flat. I do look forward to when they get around to adapting Wicked for the screen, but this may have killed that dream for a while.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)Dir. Michael Bay
Again, I hate the Transformers series. I can’t understand why anyone goes to see them, or really anything Bay churns out between money-counting slumber parties. The first movie was bad enough: terrible humor, boring story, a full hour before the first transformer on transformer battle, and no interesting characters. I went to the sequel thinking at least it can’t be worse than the first, but oh how I was wrong. The jokes are broader, the characters are lamer, and the tacking on of a Shia Labeouf Jesus storyline is painful for me to even think about. Also, in order to get the part, Megan Fox had to let Michael Bay film her washing his car! Still feel good about supporting this crap?

Next week, Paul and Wayne will be reviewing the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Dr. Strange, and doing their top ten “Strange” movies. Sounds like fun to me. So, check out their show on your podcatcher of choice by searching for The Countdown: Movie and TV Reviews.

Joe Sanders is a podcaster, playwright, and college instructor in Kalamazoo, MI. He has a master's degree in playwriting and a bachelor's degree in creative writing from Western Michigan University, where he currently teaches thought and writing, and is the host of the Quote Unquote Guilty podcast, part of the Word Salad Network.